US11533308B2 - Systems and methods for supporting unauthenticated post requests through a reverse proxy enabled for authentication - Google Patents

Abstract

Systems and methods for supporting unauthenticated POST requests include a device arranged intermediary to a client and a server which receives an unauthenticated HTTP POST request from the client for the server. The unauthenticated HTTP POST request may include a body. The device may generate one more data objects for the body of the unauthenticated HTTP POST request. The device may transmit a request to cause an authentication of a user to the client. The request may include the data object(s) to be stored on the client. The device may receive an HTTP GET request including the data object(s) from the client responsive to authenticating the user. The device may generate an authenticated HTTP POST request corresponding to the unauthenticated HTTP POST request using the one or more data objects included in the HTTP GET request. The device may transmit the authenticated HTTP POST request to the server.

Description

FIELD OF THE DISCLOSURE

The present application generally relates to reverse proxy devices including but not limited to systems and methods for supporting unauthenticated POST requests through a reverse proxy enabled for authentication.

BACKGROUND

Various clients may generate requests for a server or service. Some requests may be HTTP requests. The HTTP request may be an HTTP POST request, an HTTP GET request, etc. Additionally, some servers or services may require authentication of a user of the client.

SUMMARY

This Summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in a simplified form that is further described below in the Detailed Description. This Summary is not intended to identify key features or essential features, nor is it intended to limit the scope of the claims included herewith.

Systems and methods for supporting unauthenticated POST requests are described herein. More particularly, the systems and methods described herein may support unauthenticated POST requests through a reverse proxy enabled for authentication.

In various network environments, intermediary devices may be used as a reverse proxy for clients or servers. Some intermediary devices may provide an authentication function to clients and/or servers. For instance, an application delivery controller, such as Citrix's NETSCALER appliance, when deployed as a reverse proxy, can be configured to provide an AAA feature, which supports authentication, authorization, and auditing for all application traffic. When the AAA feature is enabled, or more generally, when an intermediary device provides an authentication function, any unauthorized, unauthenticated access (such as POST or GET requests) to backend server is not permitted. Whenever an unauthenticated request is identified by the intermediary device (or a traffic management virtual server), the intermediary device may redirect the user for performing authentication (to an authentication virtual server). Once the user is authenticated, the user is given access to the backend server. However, when the unauthenticated request is an unauthenticated POST request, a post body of the unauthenticated POST request may be lost as a result of the redirect for authentication. One possible implementation of conserving the post body of an unauthenticated POST request is by storing the post body locally at the intermediary device while the user is authenticated. However, storing arbitrary data on the intermediary device may lead to various security attacks. Also, since an intermediary device may function as a proxy for a plurality of clients, storing a post body for unauthenticated POST requests may be expensive in terms of memory.

According to the embodiments described herein, a device may receive an unauthenticated HTTP POST request from a client for the server. The unauthenticated HTTP POST request may include a body. The device may generate one or more data objects for the body of the unauthenticated HTTP POST request. The device may transmit a request to cause an authentication of the user. The request may include the one or more data objects to be stored on the client. The device may receive an HTTP GET request from the client responsive to authenticating the user. The HTTP GET request may include the one or more data objects stored on the client. The device may generate an authenticated HTTP POST request corresponding to the unauthenticated HTTP POST request using the one or more data objects included in the HTTP GET request. The device may transmit the authenticated HTTP POST request to the server.

According to the implementations and embodiments described herein, the present disclosure maintains the post body corresponding to an unauthenticated HTTP POST request while the user authenticates themselves, thereby eliminating redundancy in generating the post body of the HTTP POST request. Additionally, the implementations and embodiments described herein provide a more secure way of conserving data corresponding to HTTP POST request by having data corresponding to the post body stored at the client (rather than at the intermediary device). The implementations and embodiments described herein reduce the likelihood of an attack at the intermediary device by offloading data storage corresponding to the HTTP POST request to the client which generated the HTTP POST request. Various other benefits of the systems and methods described herein will become apparent as follows.

In one aspect, this disclosure is directed to a method. The method includes receiving, by a device intermediary to a client and a server, from the client, an unauthenticated HTTP POST request for the server. The unauthenticated HTTP POST request may include a body. The method includes generating, by the device, one more data objects for the body of the unauthenticated HTTP POST request. The method includes transmitting, by the device, to the client, a request to cause an authentication of a user. The request may include the one or more data objects to be stored on the client. The method includes receiving, by the device, responsive to authenticating the user, from the client, an HTTP GET request including the one or more data objects stored on the client. The method includes generating, by the device, an authenticated HTTP POST request corresponding to the unauthenticated HTTP POST request using the one or more data objects included in the HTTP GET request. The method includes transmitting, by the device, to the server, the authenticated HTTP POST request.

In some embodiments, the method further includes determining, by the device, based on the unauthenticated HTTP post request, that the user is unauthenticated. Generating the one or more data objects and transmitting the request may be performed responsive to determining that the user is unauthenticated. In some embodiments, the method further includes storing, by the device, in memory of the device, context data including a session identifier corresponding to the unauthenticated HTTP POST request and an indicator indicating that the unauthenticated HTTP POST request is an HTTP POST request. In some embodiments, the HTTP GET request includes a parameter received responsive to authenticating the user, the parameter corresponding to the context data and used to generate the authenticated HTTP POST request. In some embodiments, the request to cause the authentication of the user is a first request. The method may further include receiving, by the device from the client, responsive to the request to cause the authentication of the user, one or more credentials for authenticating the user. The method may further include authenticating, by the device, the user based on the one or more credentials.

In some embodiments, the unauthenticated HTTP POST request identifies an information resource. The method may further include generating, by the device, responsive to authenticating the user, a request to redirect the client to the information resource identified in the unauthenticated HTTP POST request. The method may further include transmitting, by the device, to the client, the request to cause the client to be redirected to the information resource. In some embodiments, the request to cause the authentication of the user includes a parameter which indicates that the device is to generate the authenticated HTTP POST request from the HTTP GET request. In some embodiments, the one or more data objects is a plurality of data objects. The body of the unauthenticated HTTP POST request may have a size which exceeds a maximum size of a data object of the plurality of data objects. Generating the plurality of data objects may include dividing, by the device, the body of the unauthenticated HTTP POST request into the plurality of data objects. In some embodiments, the plurality of data objects is a plurality of cookies. The method may further include setting, by the device, the plurality of cookies on a browser of the client. In some embodiments, generating the authenticated HTTP POST request comprises modifying, by the device, an identifier of the HTTP GET request which corresponds to HTTP GET requests to an identifier which corresponds to HTTP POST requests.

In another aspect, this disclosure is directed to a system. The system includes a device intermediary to a client and a server. The device may be configured to receive, from the client, an unauthenticated HTTP POST request for the server. The unauthenticated HTTP POST request may include a body. The device may be configured to generate one more data objects for the body of the unauthenticated HTTP POST request. The device may be configured to transmit, to the client, a request to cause an authentication of a user. The request may include the one or more data objects to be stored on the client. The device may be configured to receive, responsive to authenticating the user, from the client, an HTTP GET request including the one or more data objects stored on the client. The device may be configured to generate an authenticated HTTP POST request corresponding to the unauthenticated HTTP POST request using the one or more data objects included in the HTTP GET request. The device may be configured to transmit the authenticated HTTP POST request to the server.

In some embodiments, the device is further configured to determine, based on the unauthenticated HTTP post request, that the user is unauthenticated. Generating the one or more data objects and transmitting the request may be performed responsive to determining that the user is unauthenticated. In some embodiments, the device is further configured to store, in memory of the device, context data including a session identifier corresponding to the unauthenticated HTTP POST request and an indicator indicating that the unauthenticated HTTP POST request is an HTTP POST request. In some embodiments, the HTTP GET request includes a parameter received responsive to authenticating the user, the parameter corresponding to the context data and used to generate the authenticated HTTP POST request. In some embodiments, the request to cause the authentication of the user is a first request. The device may be further configured to receive, from the client, responsive to the request to cause the authentication of the user, one or more credentials for authenticating the user, and authenticate the user based on the one or more credentials.

In some embodiments, the unauthenticated HTTP POST request identifies an information resource. The device may be configured to generate, responsive to authenticating the user, a request to redirect the client to the information resource identified in the unauthenticated HTTP POST request. The device may be configured to transmit, to the client, the request to cause the client to be redirected to the information resource. In some embodiments, the request to cause the authentication of the user includes a parameter which indicates that the device is to generate the authenticated HTTP POST request from the HTTP GET request. In some embodiments, the one or more data objects is a plurality of data objects. The body of the unauthenticated HTTP POST request may have a size which exceeds a maximum size of a data object of the plurality of data objects. Generating the plurality of data objects may include dividing the body of the unauthenticated HTTP POST request into the plurality of data objects. In some embodiments, the plurality of data objects is a plurality of cookies. The device may further be configured to set the plurality of cookies on a browser of the client.

In still another aspect, this disclosure is directed to a non-transitory computer readable medium storing program instructions for causing one or more processors to receive, from a client, an unauthenticated HTTP POST request for a server. The unauthenticated HTTP POST request may include a body. The instructions may cause the processors to generate one more data objects for the body of the unauthenticated HTTP post request. The instructions may cause the processors to transmit, to the client, a request to cause an authentication of a user. The request may include the one or more data objects to be stored on the client. The instructions may cause the processors to receive, responsive to authenticating the user, from the client, an HTTP GET request including the one or more data objects stored on the client. The instructions may cause the processors to generate an authenticated HTTP POST request corresponding to the unauthenticated HTTP post request using the one or more data objects included in the HTTP GET request. The instructions may cause the processors to transmit, to the server, the authenticated HTTP POST request.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Objects, aspects, features, and advantages of embodiments disclosed herein will become more fully apparent from the following detailed description, the appended claims, and the accompanying drawing figures in which like reference numerals identify similar or identical elements. Reference numerals that are introduced in the specification in association with a drawing figure may be repeated in one or more subsequent figures without additional description in the specification in order to provide context for other features, and not every element may be labeled in every figure. The drawing figures are not necessarily to scale, with emphasis instead being placed upon illustrating embodiments, principles, and concepts. The drawings are not intended to limit the scope of the claims included herewith.

FIG.1A is a block diagram of a network computing system, in accordance with an illustrative embodiment;

FIG.1B is a block diagram of a network computing system for delivering a computing environment from a server to a client via an appliance, in accordance with an illustrative embodiment;

FIG.1C is a block diagram of a computing device, in accordance with an illustrative embodiment;

FIG.2 is a block diagram of an appliance for processing communications between a client and a server, in accordance with an illustrative embodiment;

FIG.3 is a block diagram of a virtualization environment, in accordance with an illustrative embodiment;

FIG.4 is a block diagram of a cluster system, in accordance with an illustrative embodiment;

FIG.5 is a block diagram of a system for supporting unauthenticated POST requests, in accordance with an illustrative embodiment;

FIG.6 is a flow diagram of a method for supporting unauthenticated POST requests, in accordance with an illustrative embodiment; and

FIG.7 is a flow diagram showing efficient handling of unauthenticated POST requests in an intermediary device, in accordance with an illustrative embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

For purposes of reading the description of the various embodiments below, the following descriptions of the sections of the specification and their respective contents may be helpful:

Section A describes a network environment and computing environment which may be useful for practicing embodiments described herein;

Section B describes embodiments of systems and methods for delivering a computing environment to a remote user;

Section C describes embodiments of systems and methods for providing a clustered appliance architecture environment;

Section D describes embodiments of systems and methods for providing a clustered appliance architecture environment; and

Section E describes embodiments of systems and methods for supporting unauthenticated POST requests.

A. Network and Computing Environment

Referring toFIG.1A, anillustrative network environment100 is depicted.Network environment100 may include one or more clients102(1)-102(n) (also generally referred to as local machine(s)102 or client(s)102) in communication with one or more servers106(1)-106(n) (also generally referred to as remote machine(s)106 or server(s)106) via one or more networks104(1)-104n(generally referred to as network(s)104). In some embodiments, aclient102 may communicate with aserver106 via one or more appliances200(1)-200n(generally referred to as appliance(s)200 or gateway(s)200).

Although the embodiment shown inFIG.1A shows one ormore networks104 betweenclients102 andservers106, in other embodiments,clients102 andservers106 may be on thesame network104. Thevarious networks104 may be the same type of network or different types of networks. For example, in some embodiments, network104(1) may be a private network such as a local area network (LAN) or a company Intranet, while network104(2) and/or network104(n) may be a public network, such as a wide area network (WAN) or the Internet. In other embodiments, both network104(1) and network104(n) may be private networks.Networks104 may employ one or more types of physical networks and/or network topologies, such as wired and/or wireless networks, and may employ one or more communication transport protocols, such as transmission control protocol (TCP), internet protocol (IP), user datagram protocol (UDP) or other similar protocols.

As shown inFIG.1A, one ormore appliances200 may be located at various points or in various communication paths ofnetwork environment100. For example,appliance200 may be deployed between two networks104(1) and104(2), andappliances200 may communicate with one another to work in conjunction to, for example, accelerate network traffic betweenclients102 andservers106. In other embodiments, theappliance200 may be located on anetwork104. For example,appliance200 may be implemented as part of one ofclients102 and/orservers106. In an embodiment,appliance200 may be implemented as a network device such as Citrix networking (formerly NetScaler®) products sold by Citrix Systems, Inc. of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

As shown inFIG.1A, one ormore servers106 may operate as aserver farm38.Servers106 ofserver farm38 may be logically grouped, and may either be geographically co-located (e.g., on premises) or geographically dispersed (e.g., cloud based) fromclients102 and/orother servers106. In an embodiment,server farm38 executes one or more applications on behalf of one or more of clients102 (e.g., as an application server), although other uses are possible, such as a file server, gateway server, proxy server, or other similar server uses.Clients102 may seek access to hosted applications onservers106.

As shown inFIG.1A, in some embodiments,appliances200 may include, be replaced by, or be in communication with, one or more additional appliances, such as WAN optimization appliances205(1)-205(n), referred to generally as WAN optimization appliance(s)205. For example,WAN optimization appliance205 may accelerate, cache, compress or otherwise optimize or improve performance, operation, flow control, or quality of service of network traffic, such as traffic to and/or from a WAN connection, such as optimizing Wide Area File Services (WAFS), accelerating Server Message Block (SMB) or Common Internet File System (CIFS). In some embodiments,appliance205 may be a performance enhancing proxy or a WAN optimization controller. In one embodiment,appliance205 may be implemented as Citrix SD-WAN products sold by Citrix Systems, Inc. of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Referring toFIG.1B, an example network environment,100′, for delivering and/or operating a computing network environment on aclient102 is shown. As shown inFIG.1B, aserver106 may include anapplication delivery system190 for delivering a computing environment, application, and/or data files to one ormore clients102.Client102 may includeclient agent120 andcomputing environment15.Computing environment15 may execute or operate an application,16, that accesses, processes or uses adata file17.Computing environment15,application16 and/or data file17 may be delivered viaappliance200 and/or theserver106.

Appliance200 may accelerate delivery of all or a portion ofcomputing environment15 to aclient102, for example by theapplication delivery system190. For example,appliance200 may accelerate delivery of a streaming application and data file processable by the application from a data center to a remote user location by accelerating transport layer traffic between aclient102 and aserver106. Such acceleration may be provided by one or more techniques, such as: 1) transport layer connection pooling, 2) transport layer connection multiplexing, 3) transport control protocol buffering, 4) compression, 5) caching, or other techniques.Appliance200 may also provide load balancing ofservers106 to process requests fromclients102, act as a proxy or access server to provide access to the one ormore servers106, provide security and/or act as a firewall between aclient102 and aserver106, provide Domain Name Service (DNS) resolution, provide one or more virtual servers or virtual internet protocol servers, and/or provide a secure virtual private network (VPN) connection from aclient102 to aserver106, such as a secure socket layer (SSL) VPN connection and/or provide encryption and decryption operations.

Applicationdelivery management system190 may delivercomputing environment15 to a user (e.g., client102), remote or otherwise, based on authentication and authorization policies applied by policy engine195. A remote user may obtain a computing environment and access to server stored applications and data files from any network-connected device (e.g., client102). For example,appliance200 may request an application and data file fromserver106. In response to the request,application delivery system190 and/orserver106 may deliver the application and data file toclient102, for example via an application stream to operate incomputing environment15 onclient102, or via a remote-display protocol or otherwise via remote-based or server-based computing. In an embodiment,application delivery system190 may be implemented as any portion of the Citrix Workspace Suite™ by Citrix Systems, Inc., such as Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops (formerly XenApp® and XenDesktop®).

Policy engine195 may control and manage the access to, and execution and delivery of, applications. For example, policy engine195 may determine the one or more applications a user orclient102 may access and/or how the application should be delivered to the user orclient102, such as a server-based computing, streaming or delivering the application locally to theclient120 for local execution.

For example, in operation, aclient102 may request execution of an application (e.g.,application16′) andapplication delivery system190 ofserver106 determines how to executeapplication16′, for example based upon credentials received fromclient102 and a user policy applied by policy engine195 associated with the credentials. For example,application delivery system190 may enableclient102 to receive application-output data generated by execution of the application on aserver106, may enableclient102 to execute the application locally after receiving the application fromserver106, or may stream the application vianetwork104 toclient102. For example, in some embodiments, the application may be a server-based or a remote-based application executed onserver106 on behalf ofclient102.Server106 may display output toclient102 using a thin-client or remote-display protocol, such as the Independent Computing Architecture (ICA) protocol by Citrix Systems, Inc. of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. The application may be any application related to real-time data communications, such as applications for streaming graphics, streaming video and/or audio or other data, delivery of remote desktops or workspaces or hosted services or applications, for example infrastructure as a service (IaaS), desktop as a service (DaaS), workspace as a service (WaaS), software as a service (SaaS) or platform as a service (PaaS).

One or more ofservers106 may include a performance monitoring service oragent197. In some embodiments, a dedicated one ormore servers106 may be employed to perform performance monitoring. Performance monitoring may be performed using data collection, aggregation, analysis, management and reporting, for example by software, hardware or a combination thereof. Performance monitoring may include one or more agents for performing monitoring, measurement and data collection activities on clients102 (e.g., client agent120), servers106 (e.g., agent197) or anappliance200 and/or205 (agent not shown). In general, monitoring agents (e.g.,120 and/or197) execute transparently (e.g., in the background) to any application and/or user of the device. In some embodiments,monitoring agent197 includes any of the product embodiments referred to as Citrix Analytics or Citrix Application Delivery Management by Citrix Systems, Inc. of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Themonitoring agents120 and197 may monitor, measure, collect, and/or analyze data on a predetermined frequency, based upon an occurrence of given event(s), or in real time during operation ofnetwork environment100. The monitoring agents may monitor resource consumption and/or performance of hardware, software, and/or communications resources ofclients102,networks104,appliances200 and/or205, and/orservers106. For example, network connections such as a transport layer connection, network latency, bandwidth utilization, end-user response times, application usage and performance, session connections to an application, cache usage, memory usage, processor usage, storage usage, database transactions, client and/or server utilization, active users, duration of user activity, application crashes, errors, or hangs, the time required to log-in to an application, a server, or the application delivery system, and/or other performance conditions and metrics may be monitored.

Themonitoring agents120 and197 may provide application performance management forapplication delivery system190. For example, based upon one or more monitored performance conditions or metrics,application delivery system190 may be dynamically adjusted, for example periodically or in real-time, to optimize application delivery byservers106 toclients102 based upon network environment performance and conditions.

In described embodiments,clients102,servers106, andappliances200 and205 may be deployed as and/or executed on any type and form of computing device, such as any desktop computer, laptop computer, or mobile device capable of communication over at least one network and performing the operations described herein. For example,clients102,servers106 and/orappliances200 and205 may each correspond to one computer, a plurality of computers, or a network of distributed computers such ascomputer101 shown inFIG.1C.

As shown inFIG.1C,computer101 may include one ormore processors103, volatile memory122 (e.g., RAM), non-volatile memory128 (e.g., one or more hard disk drives (HDDs) or other magnetic or optical storage media, one or more solid state drives (SSDs) such as a flash drive or other solid state storage media, one or more hybrid magnetic and solid state drives, and/or one or more virtual storage volumes, such as a cloud storage, or a combination of such physical storage volumes and virtual storage volumes or arrays thereof), user interface (UI)123, one ormore communications interfaces118, andcommunication bus150.User interface123 may include graphical user interface (GUI)124 (e.g., a touchscreen, a display, etc.) and one or more input/output (I/O) devices126 (e.g., a mouse, a keyboard, etc.).Non-volatile memory128 stores operating system115, one ormore applications116, anddata117 such that, for example, computer instructions of operating system115 and/orapplications116 are executed by processor(s)103 out ofvolatile memory122. Data may be entered using an input device ofGUI124 or received from I/O device(s)126. Various elements ofcomputer101 may communicate viacommunication bus150.Computer101 as shown inFIG.1C is shown merely as an example, asclients102,servers106 and/orappliances200 and205 may be implemented by any computing or processing environment and with any type of machine or set of machines that may have suitable hardware and/or software capable of operating as described herein.

Processor(s)103 may be implemented by one or more programmable processors executing one or more computer programs to perform the functions of the system. As used herein, the term “processor” describes an electronic circuit that performs a function, an operation, or a sequence of operations. The function, operation, or sequence of operations may be hard coded into the electronic circuit or soft coded by way of instructions held in a memory device. A “processor” may perform the function, operation, or sequence of operations using digital values or using analog signals. In some embodiments, the “processor” can be embodied in one or more application specific integrated circuits (ASICs), microprocessors, digital signal processors, microcontrollers, field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), programmable logic arrays (PLAs), multi-core processors, or general-purpose computers with associated memory. The “processor” may be analog, digital or mixed-signal. In some embodiments, the “processor” may be one or more physical processors or one or more “virtual” (e.g., remotely located or “cloud”) processors.

Communications interfaces118 may include one or more interfaces to enablecomputer101 to access a computer network such as a LAN, a WAN, or the Internet through a variety of wired and/or wireless or cellular connections.

In described embodiments, afirst computing device101 may execute an application on behalf of a user of a client computing device (e.g., a client102), may execute a virtual machine, which provides an execution session within which applications execute on behalf of a user or a client computing device (e.g., a client102), such as a hosted desktop session, may execute a terminal services session to provide a hosted desktop environment, or may provide access to a computing environment including one or more of: one or more applications, one or more desktop applications, and one or more desktop sessions in which one or more applications may execute.

B. Appliance Architecture

FIG.2 shows an example embodiment ofappliance200. As described herein,appliance200 may be implemented as a server, gateway, router, switch, bridge or other type of computing or network device. As shown inFIG.2, an embodiment ofappliance200 may include ahardware layer206 and asoftware layer205 divided into auser space202 and akernel space204.Hardware layer206 provides the hardware elements upon which programs and services withinkernel space204 anduser space202 are executed and allow programs and services withinkernel space204 anduser space202 to communicate data both internally and externally with respect toappliance200. As shown inFIG.2,hardware layer206 may include one ormore processing units262 for executing software programs and services,memory264 for storing software and data,network ports266 for transmitting and receiving data over a network, andencryption processor260 for encrypting and decrypting data such as in relation to Secure Socket Layer (SSL) or Transport Layer Security (TLS) processing of data transmitted and received over the network.

An operating system ofappliance200 allocates, manages, or otherwise segregates the available system memory intokernel space204 anduser space202.Kernel space204 is reserved for runningkernel230, including any device drivers, kernel extensions or other kernel related software. As known to those skilled in the art,kernel230 is the core of the operating system, and provides access, control, and management of resources and hardware-related elements ofapplication104.Kernel space204 may also include a number of network services or processes working in conjunction withcache manager232.

Appliance200 may include one or more network stacks267, such as a TCP/IP based stack, for communicating with client(s)102, server(s)106, network(s)104, and/orother appliances200 or205. For example,appliance200 may establish and/or terminate one or more transport layer connections betweenclients102 andservers106. Eachnetwork stack267 may include a buffer243 for queuing one or more network packets for transmission byappliance200.

Kernel space204 may includecache manager232,packet engine240,encryption engine234,policy engine236 andcompression engine238. In other words, one or more ofprocesses232,240,234,236 and238 run in the core address space of the operating system ofappliance200, which may reduce the number of data transactions to and from the memory and/or context switches between kernel mode and user mode, for example since data obtained in kernel mode may not need to be passed or copied to a user process, thread or user level data structure.

Cache manager232 may duplicate original data stored elsewhere or data previously computed, generated or transmitted to reducing the access time of the data. In some embodiments, the cache memory may be a data object inmemory264 ofappliance200, or may be a physical memory having a faster access time thanmemory264.

Policy engine236 may include a statistical engine or other configuration mechanism to allow a user to identify, specify, define or configure a caching policy and access, control and management of objects, data or content being cached byappliance200, and define or configure security, network traffic, network access, compression or other functions performed byappliance200.

Encryption engine234 may process any security related protocol, such as SSL or TLS. For example,encryption engine234 may encrypt and decrypt network packets, or any portion thereof, communicated viaappliance200, may setup or establish SSL, TLS or other secure connections, for example betweenclient102,server106, and/orother appliances200 or205. In some embodiments,encryption engine234 may use a tunneling protocol to provide a VPN between aclient102 and aserver106. In some embodiments,encryption engine234 is in communication withencryption processor260.Compression engine238 compresses network packets bi-directionally betweenclients102 andservers106 and/or between one ormore appliances200.

Packet engine240 may manage kernel-level processing of packets received and transmitted byappliance200 via network stacks267 to send and receive network packets vianetwork ports266.Packet engine240 may operate in conjunction withencryption engine234,cache manager232,policy engine236 andcompression engine238, for example to perform encryption/decryption, traffic management such as request-level content switching and request-level cache redirection, and compression and decompression of data.

User space202 is a memory area or portion of the operating system used by user mode applications or programs otherwise running in user mode. A user mode application may not accesskernel space204 directly and uses service calls in order to access kernel services.User space202 may include graphical user interface (GUI)210, a command line interface (CLI)212,shell services214,health monitor216, anddaemon services218.GUI210 andCLI212 enable a system administrator or other user to interact with and control the operation ofappliance200, such as via the operating system ofappliance200.Shell services214 include the programs, services, tasks, processes or executable instructions to support interaction withappliance200 by a user via theGUI210 and/orCLI212.

Health monitor216 monitors, checks, reports and ensures that network systems are functioning properly and that users are receiving requested content over a network, for example by monitoring activity ofappliance200. In some embodiments,health monitor216 intercepts and inspects any network traffic passed viaappliance200. For example,health monitor216 may interface with one or more ofencryption engine234,cache manager232,policy engine236,compression engine238,packet engine240,daemon services218, andshell services214 to determine a state, status, operating condition, or health of any portion of theappliance200. Further,health monitor216 may determine if a program, process, service or task is active and currently running, check status, error or history logs provided by any program, process, service or task to determine any condition, status or error with any portion ofappliance200. Additionally,health monitor216 may measure and monitor the performance of any application, program, process, service, task or thread executing onappliance200.

Daemon services218 are programs that run continuously or in the background and handle periodic service requests received byappliance200. In some embodiments, a daemon service may forward the requests to other programs or processes, such as anotherdaemon service218 as appropriate.

As described herein,appliance200 may relieveservers106 of much of the processing load caused by repeatedly opening and closing transport layer connections toclients102 by opening one or more transport layer connections with eachserver106 and maintaining these connections to allow repeated data accesses by clients via the Internet (e.g., “connection pooling”). To perform connection pooling,appliance200 may translate or multiplex communications by modifying sequence numbers and acknowledgment numbers at the transport layer protocol level (e.g., “connection multiplexing”).Appliance200 may also provide switching or load balancing for communications between theclient102 andserver106.

As described herein, eachclient102 may includeclient agent120 for establishing and exchanging communications withappliance200 and/orserver106 via anetwork104.Client102 may have installed and/or execute one or more applications that are in communication withnetwork104.Client agent120 may intercept network communications from a network stack used by the one or more applications. For example,client agent120 may intercept a network communication at any point in a network stack and redirect the network communication to a destination desired, managed or controlled byclient agent120, for example to intercept and redirect a transport layer connection to an IP address and port controlled or managed byclient agent120. Thus,client agent120 may transparently intercept any protocol layer below the transport layer, such as the network layer, and any protocol layer above the transport layer, such as the session, presentation or application layers.Client agent120 can interface with the transport layer to secure, optimize, accelerate, route or load-balance any communications provided via any protocol carried by the transport layer.

In some embodiments,client agent120 is implemented as an Independent Computing Architecture (ICA) client developed by Citrix Systems, Inc. of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.Client agent120 may perform acceleration, streaming, monitoring, and/or other operations. For example,client agent120 may accelerate streaming an application from aserver106 to aclient102.Client agent120 may also perform end-point detection/scanning and collect end-point information aboutclient102 forappliance200 and/orserver106.Appliance200 and/orserver106 may use the collected information to determine and provide access, authentication and authorization control of the client's connection tonetwork104. For example,client agent120 may identify and determine one or more client-side attributes, such as: the operating system and/or a version of an operating system, a service pack of the operating system, a running service, a running process, a file, presence or versions of various applications of the client, such as antivirus, firewall, security, and/or other software.

C. Systems and Methods for Virtualizing an Application Delivery Controller

Referring now toFIG.3, a block diagram of avirtualized environment300 is shown. As shown, acomputing device302 invirtualized environment300 includes avirtualization layer303, ahypervisor layer304, and ahardware layer307.Hypervisor layer304 includes one or more hypervisors (or virtualization managers)301 that allocates and manages access to a number of physical resources in hardware layer307 (e.g., physical processor(s)321 and physical disk(s)328) by at least one virtual machine (VM) (e.g., one of VMs306) executing invirtualization layer303. Each VM306 may include allocated virtual resources such as virtual processors332 and/or virtual disks342, as well as virtual resources such as virtual memory and virtual network interfaces. In some embodiments, at least one of VMs306 may include a control operating system (e.g.,305) in communication withhypervisor301 and used to execute applications for managing and configuring other VMs (e.g., guest operating systems310) ondevice302.

In general, hypervisor(s)301 may provide virtual resources to an operating system of VMs306 in any manner that simulates the operating system having access to a physical device. Thus, hypervisor(s)301 may be used to emulate virtual hardware, partition physical hardware, virtualize physical hardware, and execute virtual machines that provide access to computing environments. In an illustrative embodiment, hypervisor(s)301 may be implemented as a Citrix Hypervisor by Citrix Systems, Inc. of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. In an illustrative embodiment,device302 executing a hypervisor that creates a virtual machine platform on which guest operating systems may execute is referred to as a host server.302

Hypervisor301 may create one or more VMs306 in which an operating system (e.g.,control operating system305 and/or guest operating system310) executes. For example, the hypervisor301 loads a virtual machine image to create VMs306 to execute an operating system.Hypervisor301 may present VMs306 with an abstraction ofhardware layer307, and/or may control how physical capabilities ofhardware layer307 are presented to VMs306. For example, hypervisor(s)301 may manage a pool of resources distributed across multiple physical computing devices.

In some embodiments, one of VMs306 (e.g., the VM executing control operating system305) may manage and configure other of VMs306, for example by managing the execution and/or termination of a VM and/or managing allocation of virtual resources to a VM. In various embodiments, VMs may communicate with hypervisor(s)301 and/or other VMs via, for example, one or more Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), shared memory, and/or other techniques.

In general, VMs306 may provide a user ofdevice302 with access to resources withinvirtualized computing environment300, for example, one or more programs, applications, documents, files, desktop and/or computing environments, or other resources. In some embodiments, VMs306 may be implemented as fully virtualized VMs that are not aware that they are virtual machines (e.g., a Hardware Virtual Machine or HVM). In other embodiments, the VM may be aware that it is a virtual machine, and/or the VM may be implemented as a paravirtualized (PV) VM.

Although shown inFIG.3 as including a singlevirtualized device302,virtualized environment300 may include a plurality of networked devices in a system in which at least one physical host executes a virtual machine. A device on which a VM executes may be referred to as a physical host and/or a host machine. For example,appliance200 may be additionally or alternatively implemented in avirtualized environment300 on any computing device, such as aclient102,server106 orappliance200. Virtual appliances may provide functionality for availability, performance, health monitoring, caching and compression, connection multiplexing and pooling and/or security processing (e.g., firewall, VPN, encryption/decryption, etc.), similarly as described in regard toappliance200.

In some embodiments, a server may execute multiple virtual machines306, for example on various cores of a multi-core processing system and/or various processors of a multiple processor device. For example, although generally shown herein as “processors” (e.g., inFIGS.1C,2 and3), one or more of the processors may be implemented as either single- or multi-core processors to provide a multi-threaded, parallel architecture and/or multi-core architecture. Each processor and/or core may have or use memory that is allocated or assigned for private or local use that is only accessible by that processor/core, and/or may have or use memory that is public or shared and accessible by multiple processors/cores. Such architectures may allow work, task, load or network traffic distribution across one or more processors and/or one or more cores (e.g., by functional parallelism, data parallelism, flow-based data parallelism, etc.).

Further, instead of (or in addition to) the functionality of the cores being implemented in the form of a physical processor/core, such functionality may be implemented in a virtualized environment (e.g.,300) on aclient102,server106 orappliance200, such that the functionality may be implemented across multiple devices, such as a cluster of computing devices, a server farm or network of computing devices, etc. The various processors/cores may interface or communicate with each other using a variety of interface techniques, such as core to core messaging, shared memory, kernel APIs, etc.

In embodiments employing multiple processors and/or multiple processor cores, described embodiments may distribute data packets among cores or processors, for example to balance the flows across the cores. For example, packet distribution may be based upon determinations of functions performed by each core, source and destination addresses, and/or whether: a load on the associated core is above a predetermined threshold; the load on the associated core is below a predetermined threshold; the load on the associated core is less than the load on the other cores; or any other metric that can be used to determine where to forward data packets based in part on the amount of load on a processor.

For example, data packets may be distributed among cores or processes using receive-side scaling (RSS) in order to process packets using multiple processors/cores in a network. RSS generally allows packet processing to be balanced across multiple processors/cores while maintaining in-order delivery of the packets. In some embodiments, RSS may use a hashing scheme to determine a core or processor for processing a packet.

The RSS may generate hashes from any type and form of input, such as a sequence of values. This sequence of values can include any portion of the network packet, such as any header, field or payload of network packet, and include any tuples of information associated with a network packet or data flow, such as addresses and ports. The hash result or any portion thereof may be used to identify a processor, core, engine, etc., for distributing a network packet, for example via a hash table, indirection table, or other mapping technique.

D. Systems and Methods for Providing a Distributed Cluster Architecture

Although shown inFIGS.1A and1B as being single appliances,appliances200 may be implemented as one or more distributed or clustered appliances. Individual computing devices or appliances may be referred to as nodes of the cluster. A centralized management system may perform load balancing, distribution, configuration, or other tasks to allow the nodes to operate in conjunction as a single computing system. Such a cluster may be viewed as a single virtual appliance or computing device.FIG.4 shows a block diagram of an illustrative computing device cluster orappliance cluster400. A plurality ofappliances200 or other computing devices (e.g., nodes) may be joined into asingle cluster400.Cluster400 may operate as an application server, network storage server, backup service, or any other type of computing device to perform many of the functions ofappliances200 and/or205.

In some embodiments, eachappliance200 ofcluster400 may be implemented as a multi-processor and/or multi-core appliance, as described herein. Such embodiments may employ a two-tier distribution system, with one appliance if the cluster distributing packets to nodes of the cluster, and each node distributing packets for processing to processors/cores of the node. In many embodiments, one or more ofappliances200 ofcluster400 may be physically grouped or geographically proximate to one another, such as a group of blade servers or rack mount devices in a given chassis, rack, and/or data center. In some embodiments, one or more ofappliances200 ofcluster400 may be geographically distributed, withappliances200 not physically or geographically co-located. In such embodiments, geographically remote appliances may be joined by a dedicated network connection and/or VPN. In geographically distributed embodiments, load balancing may also account for communications latency between geographically remote appliances.

In some embodiments,cluster400 may be considered a virtual appliance, grouped via common configuration, management, and purpose, rather than as a physical group. For example, an appliance cluster may comprise a plurality of virtual machines or processes executed by one or more servers.

As shown inFIG.4,appliance cluster400 may be coupled to a first network104(1) viaclient data plane402, for example to transfer data betweenclients102 andappliance cluster400.Client data plane402 may be implemented a switch, hub, router, or other similar network device internal or external to cluster400 to distribute traffic across the nodes ofcluster400. For example, traffic distribution may be performed based on equal-cost multi-path (ECMP) routing with next hops configured with appliances or nodes of the cluster, open-shortest path first (OSPF), stateless hash-based traffic distribution, link aggregation (LAG) protocols, or any other type and form of flow distribution, load balancing, and routing.

Appliance cluster400 may be coupled to a second network104(2) viaserver data plane404. Similarly toclient data plane402,server data plane404 may be implemented as a switch, hub, router, or other network device that may be internal or external to cluster400. In some embodiments,client data plane402 andserver data plane404 may be merged or combined into a single device.

In some embodiments, eachappliance200 ofcluster400 may be connected via an internal communication network or backplane406. Back plane406 may enable inter-node or inter-appliance control and configuration messages, for inter-node forwarding of traffic, and/or for communicating configuration and control traffic from an administrator or user to cluster400. In some embodiments, backplane406 may be a physical network, a VPN or tunnel, or a combination thereof.

E. Systems and Methods for Supporting Unauthenticated POST Requests

Systems and methods for supporting unauthenticated POST requests are described herein. More particularly, the systems and methods described herein may support unauthenticated POST requests through a reverse proxy enabled for authentication.

In various network environments, intermediary devices (such as anappliance200 described above) may be used as a reverse proxy for clients or servers. Some intermediary devices may provide an authentication function to clients and/or servers. When an intermediary device provides an authentication function, any unauthorized, unauthenticated access (such as POST or GET requests) to a backend server is not permitted. Whenever an unauthenticated request is identified by the intermediary device, the intermediary device may redirect the user for performing authentication. Once the user is authenticated, the user is given access to the backend server. However, when the unauthenticated request is an unauthenticated POST request, a post body of the unauthenticated POST request may be lost as a result of the redirect for authentication. One possible implementation of conserving the post body of an unauthenticated POST request is by storing the post body locally at the intermediary device while the user is authenticated. However, storing arbitrary data on the intermediary device may lead to various security attacks. Also, since an intermediary device may function as a proxy for a plurality of clients, storing a post body for unauthenticated POST requests may be expensive in terms of memory.

According to the embodiments described herein, a device may receive an unauthenticated HTTP POST request from a client for the server. The unauthenticated HTTP POST request may include a body. The device may generate one or more data objects for the body of the unauthenticated HTTP POST request. The device may transmit a request to cause an authentication of the user. The request may include the one or more data objects to be stored on the client. The device may receive an HTTP GET request from the client responsive to authenticating the user. The HTTP GET request may include the one or more data objects stored on the client. The device may generate an authenticated HTTP POST request corresponding to the unauthenticated HTTP POST request using the one or more data objects included in the HTTP GET request. The device may transmit the authenticated HTTP POST request to the server.

According to the implementations and embodiments described herein, the present disclosure maintains the post body corresponding to an unauthenticated HTTP POST request while the user authenticates themselves, thereby eliminating redundancy in generating the post body of the HTTP POST request. Additionally, the implementations and embodiments described herein provide a more secure way of conserving data corresponding to HTTP POST request by having data corresponding to the post body stored at the client (rather than at the intermediary device). The implementations and embodiments described herein reduce the likelihood of an attack at the intermediary device by offloading data storage corresponding to the HTTP POST request to the client which generated the HTTP POST request. Various other benefits of the systems and methods described herein will become apparent as follows.

Referring now toFIG.5, depicted is a block diagram of asystem500 for managing unauthenticated POST requests, according to an illustrative embodiment. Thesystem500 is shown to include aclient502, anintermediary device504, and aserver506. Theintermediary device504 may be arranged intermediate theclient502 andserver506. Theintermediary device504 may be configured to receive anHTTP POST request512 from theclient502. TheHTTP POST request512 may be an unauthenticatedHTTP POST request512 and may include apost body514. Thepost body514 refers to a body section of anHTTP POST request512. Theintermediary device504 may be configured to generate one ormore data objects516 for thepost body514 of theHTTP POST request512. Theintermediary device504 may be configured to transmit arequest518 to theclient502 to cause an authentication of the user. Therequest518 may include the data objects516 generated by theintermediary device504 for storage at theclient502. Theintermediary device504 may be configured to receive anHTTP GET request522 from theclient502 responsive to authenticating the user. TheHTTP GET request522 may include the data object(s)512 generated by theintermediary device504 and included in therequest518 to theclient502. Theintermediary device504 may be configured to generate anHTTP POST request512′ corresponding to theHTTP POST request512 using the data object(s)512 included in theHTTP GET request522. As such, theHTTP POST request512′ may include apost body514′ which is substantially the same as thepost body514 of theHTTP POST request512. Theintermediary device504 may be configured to transmit theHTTP POST request512′ to theserver506.

The systems and methods of the present solution may be implemented in any type or form of device, including clients, servers or appliances described above with reference toFIG.1A-FIG.4. For instance, theintermediary device504 may be implemented as embodied upon or otherwise incorporated into anappliance200 described above with reference toFIG.2-FIG.4. Theclients502 may be similar in some respects to theclients102 described above with respect toFIG.1A-FIG.1B. Theserver506 may be similar in some respects to theserver106 described above with respect toFIG.1A-FIG.1B. In other words, theclients502,intermediary devices504, andservers506 may include or incorporate components and devices similar in some aspects to those described above with reference toFIG.1C, such as a memory and/or one or more processors operatively coupled to the memory. The present systems and methods may be implemented in any embodiments or aspects of the appliances or devices described herein.

Thesystem500 may include theintermediary device504. Theintermediary device504 may be communicably coupled to theclient502 andserver506. In some embodiments, theintermediary device504 may be communicably coupled to a plurality ofclients502 and a plurality ofservers506. In some embodiments, theintermediary device504 may serve as a proxy for the client(s)502 to the server(s)506. For example, theintermediary device504 may include aproxy engine508. Theproxy engine508 may be any device(s), component(s), script, or combination of hardware and software configured to route one or more requests on behalf of aclient502 to a server506 (and/or vice versa). As described in greater detail below, theproxy engine508 may route the requests received from one ormore clients502 to theserver506. In some embodiments, the requests may be hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) requests, such as an HTTP POST request, an HTTP GET request, etc.

In some instances, someservers506 and/or services executing on aserver506 may require authentication prior to theclient502 accessing theserver506 and/or service. In such instances, theclient502 may be prompted to authenticate themselves prior to accessing theserver506 and/or service. In some embodiments, theintermediary device504 may include anauthentication engine510. Theauthentication engine510 may be any device(s), component(s) script, or combination of hardware and software configured to authenticate a user. While theproxy engine508 andauthentication engine510 are shown as being included on the sameintermediary device504, it is noted that, in some embodiments, thesystem500 may include one or moreintermediary devices504 for authentication and one or moreintermediary devices504 which serve as a proxy for theclients502. Additionally, in some embodiments, a plurality ofintermediary devices504 may both authenticate and serve as a proxy forvarious clients502.

In some embodiments, theintermediary device504 may be configured to receive anHTTP POST request512 for theserver506 from theclient502. TheHTTP POST request512 may include abody514 which is to be stored, saved, accepted, provided, or otherwise posted to theserver506. In some embodiments, theproxy engine508 of theintermediary device504 may be configured to receive theHTTP POST request512. Theproxy engine508 may be configured to parse theHTTP POST request512 to determine a destination for theHTTP POST request512. For example, theHTTP POST request512 may include an address associated with an information resource of the server506 (e.g., in the header, among other information or data included in the HTTP POST request512). Theproxy engine508 may be configured to parse theHTTP POST request512 to determine or identify the target for theHTTP POST request512.

HTTP POST requests are designed to be used by the browser to make complex requests on the server. For instance, if a user has just completed a long form, the application might want all of the form's data to be added to a database. The data to be sent back to the server is known as the “message body” or “payload” and can be quite large. The following are example components of an HTTP request:

Method (required)—(Example: POST)

Host (required)—(Example: www.example-domain.com)

Path (required)—(Example: /search)

HTTP version (required)—(Example: HTTP/2)

Headers (optional)—(Example: Content-Type: application/j son)

Query String (optional)—(Example: ?q test)

Body (optional)—(Example: {“q”:“test”})

A query string is not the only way to pass additional information to the website. A request body is a means of doing the same. It is typically not used with a GET request but I've added it above for the sake of an example. Typically, it is used with methods such as POST and PUT which are heavier on data transmission as they specify data to be recorded. In the above, after the headers and an empty line, {“q”:“test”} is the request body which provides additional information to the website to help it fulfill its request, much like a query string does. Passing data in the body has a few advantages to a query string and a few disadvantages. First, there is no data size limit. Query strings have a maximum size limit (specific to the browser) and therefore aren't good for transmitting a large amount of information. Second, the data is recorded and retrievable in fewer places and is, therefore, more secure. Placing sensitive data, like passwords, in query strings is problematic. Third, the request body is better for sending other data transmission formats, such as JSON and XML. While these formats can be placed in a query string, it isn't typically done. One disadvantage of passing data in the body of the request is that the request body is hidden from the user and cannot be easily shared with another person. Query strings are good for “hey, check out this link” situations since the values are stored in the link and can easily be copy/pasted to another person.

In some embodiments, theproxy engine508 may be configured to determine whether the server506 (or information resource) requires authentication of theclient502. Theproxy engine508 may be configured to determine whether theserver506 requires authentication based on the address associated with theserver506, based on knownservers506 or information resources which require authentication, based on a ping transmitted to theserver506 by theintermediary device504, etc. Where the user is to authenticate themselves prior to accessing theserver506, theproxy engine508 may be configured to parse theHTTP POST request512 to determine whether theHTTP POST request512 is from an authenticated or an unauthenticated user (e.g., whether theHTTP POST request512 is an authenticatedHTTP POST request512 or an unauthenticated HTTP POST request512). In some embodiments, theproxy engine508 may be configured to determine whether theHTTP POST request512 is an unauthenticatedHTTP POST request512 based on data included in theHTTP POST request512. For example, theproxy engine508 may be configured to parse theHTTP POST request512 to determine whether theHTTP POST request512 includes a session identifier associated with an authenticated user. Where theHTTP POST request512 does not include the session identifier, theproxy engine508 may identify theHTTP POST request512 as an unauthenticatedHTTP POST request512.

In instances where theHTTP POST request512 is an unauthenticatedHTTP POST request512 and theserver506 requires authentication, theproxy engine508 may be configured to cause theclient502 to authenticate. However, where the HTTP request from theclient502 is anHTTP POST request512 including abody514, thebody514 may be lost once theclient502 is redirected to authenticate. According to the implementations and embodiments described herein, and as described in greater detail below, theintermediary device504 may cause thepost body514 to be stored at theclient502 while the user is authenticated. Once the user is authenticated, theintermediary device504 may be configured to construct anHTTP POST request512′ using the data stored at theclient502. Such implementations and embodiments may conserve the data which would otherwise be lost.

In some embodiments, theintermediary device504 may be configured to construct, assemble, build, or otherwise generate one ormore data objects516 corresponding to thebody514 of theHTTP POST request512. In some embodiments, the data objects516 may be data packets which together form thebody514. Theintermediary device504 may be configured to generate the data objects516 using data from thebody514. In some embodiments, the data objects516 may be cookies. For example, theintermediary device504 may be configured to construct one or more cookies which together are representative of or otherwise include the data from thebody514.

In some embodiments, the data objects516 may have a size limit or maximum size. For example, a cookie may have a maximum size which is able to be set at a browser520 (e.g., for specific browser types). In such embodiments, theintermediary device504 may be configured to compare thePOST body514 to the maximum size of the data object516. Where thePOST body514 exceeds the maximum size of the data object516, theintermediary device504 may be configured to generate a plurality ofdata objects516 corresponding to thePOST body514. In some embodiments, theintermediary device504 may be configured to divide thePOST body514 into a plurality ofdata objects516 of equal or substantially equal size, or of different sizes, which are each less than the maximum size of the data object516. In some embodiments, each data object516 may include a marker, identifier, or other indicator which is used for reconstructing thePOST body514, as described in greater detail below. For example, where thePOST body514 is separated in a particular order and groupings of data objects516, each identifier may represent an order in which the data objects516 are to be re-assembled.

In some embodiments, responsive to determining that theHTTP POST request512 is an unauthenticatedHTTP POST request512, theproxy engine508 may be configured to store various data associated with the unauthenticatedHTTP POST request512 in memory of theintermediary device504. In some embodiments, theproxy engine508 may be configured to generate and store context data corresponding to the unauthenticatedHTTP POST request512. For example, theproxy engine508 may be configured to generate and store an identifier which identifies an HTTP request type (e.g., an HTTP POST request, an HTTP GET request, etc.). In some embodiments, theproxy engine508 may be configured to generate and store a session identifier associated with a connection between theclient502 andintermediary device504. By storing such context data corresponding to the unauthenticatedHTTP POST request512 while not storing data corresponding to thePOST body514, theintermediary device504 may preserve the integrity of thesystem500 by ensuring that malicious data is not stored or saved on theintermediary device504, which could potentially compromise thebackend server506, while ensuring that sensitive data is not transmitted to theclient502.

Theintermediary device504 may be configured to send, provide, communicate, or otherwise transmit arequest518 to theclient502 which causes authentication of the user. In some embodiments, therequest518 may be a redirect (such as anHTTP302 redirect, for example) which causes abrowser520 at theclient502 to redirect to an authentication page (e.g., associated with the authentication engine510). In some embodiments, theintermediary device504 may be configured to generate therequest518 to include the data object(s)516 which correspond to thePOST body514. Hence, therequest518 may include the data objects516 for storage at theclient502. In some embodiments, therequest518 may redirect thebrowser520 to the authentication page and cause thebrowser520 to set the data objects516 as cookies for thebrowser520. Accordingly, the data objects516 may be temporarily stored at thebrowser520 while a user associated with theclient502 authenticates themselves at the authentication page associated with theauthentication engine510.

In some embodiments, therequest518 may include a parameter which indicates that theintermediary device504 is to generate anHTTP POST request512′ corresponding to the unauthenticatedHTTP POST request512. The parameter may indicate that theintermediary device504 is to generate anHTTP POST request512′ responsive to receiving a subsequentHTTP GET request522 from theclient502. For instance, once the user authenticates themselves via the authentication page, theclient502 may be configured to generate anHTTP GET request522 that includes the data objects516 and the parameter. As described in greater detail below, theintermediary device504 may be configured to identify the parameter included in theHTTP GET request522 and use the data objects516 for generating anHTTP POST request512′ which corresponds to the unauthenticatedHTTP POST request512.

Where theclient502 is redirected to the authentication page, theauthentication engine510 may be configured to receive one or more credentials from theclient502 which are provided by the user. The credentials may be or include, for example, a username and password, a pin or alphanumeric code, a keyword, a biometric input, and so forth. In some embodiments, the credentials may be or include a plurality of credentials for multi-factor authentication. The user may provide the credentials to the authentication page via thebrowser520 at theclient502. Theclient502 may be configured to transmit the credentials to theauthentication engine510 for authenticating the user. Theauthentication engine510 may be configured to receive the credential(s) from theclient502 for authenticating the user. Theauthentication engine510 may be configured to authenticate the user based on the credential(s). Theauthentication engine510 may be configured to cross-reference data corresponding to user credentials with the data received from theclient502. Where theauthentication engine510 identifies a matching data set which corresponds to a particular user, theauthentication engine510 may be configured to authenticate the user.

In some embodiments, theintermediary device504 may be configured to generate a request to redirect the client to the information resource (such as a website, webpage, service, etc.) identified in the unauthenticatedHTTP POST request512. Theintermediary device504 may be configured to transmit the request to cause theclient502 to be redirected to the information resource. The information resource may be the original information resource which was attempted to be accessed via the unauthenticatedHTTP POST request512. In other words, theintermediary device504 may be configured to redirect theclient502 back to the information resource identified in the unauthenticatedHTTP POST request512.

Once the user is authenticated, theclient502 may be configured to generate another request. For example, theclient502 may generate anHTTP GET request522. In some embodiments, theclient502 may automatically generate theHTTP GET request522 responsive to the user being authenticated. Theclient502 may generate theHTTP GET request522 and include the data objects516 which are set as cookies for thebrowser520. In some embodiments, theHTTP GET request522 may further include the parameter which corresponds to the context data received with therequest518. The parameter may identify to theproxy engine508 that theproxy engine508 is to generate an authenticatedHTTP POST request512′ which corresponds to the unauthenticatedHTTP POST request512.

Theintermediary device504 may be configured to receive theHTTP GET request522 from theclient502. In some embodiments, theproxy engine508 of theintermediary device504 may be configured to receive theHTTP GET request522. Theproxy engine508 may be configured to receive theHTTP GET request522 following theauthentication engine510 authenticating the user. As noted above, theHTTP GET request522 may include the parameter. Theproxy engine508 may be configured to use the parameter for identifying the contextual data stored in memory of theintermediary device504 which corresponds to the HTTP POST request512 (e.g., the unauthenticated HTTP POST request512). Theproxy engine508 may be configured to use the parameter to determine that theproxy engine508 is to generate an authenticatedHTTP POST request512′ upon receiving theHTTP GET request522.

Theproxy engine508 may be configured to generate theHTTP POST request512′. Theproxy engine508 may be configured to use the data objects516 included in theHTTP GET request522 received from theclient502 for generating the authenticatedHTTP POST request512′. Theproxy engine508 may be configured to generate theHTTP POST request512′ by building, constructing, generating, or otherwise providing apost body514′ using the data objects516. Theproxy engine508 may provide thepost body514′ using each of the data objects516 and their corresponding identifiers for reconstructing thepost body514 included in the unauthenticatedHTTP POST request512. Accordingly, theHTTP POST request512′ may be substantially the same as the unauthenticatedHTTP POST request512, and thepost body514′ may be substantially the same as thepost body514.

In some embodiments, rather than generating a new HTTP request (e.g., a newHTTP POST request512′), theproxy engine508 may be configured to modify an identifying associated with theHTTP GET request522 to an identifier which corresponds to HTTP POST requests. In other words, theproxy engine508 may be configured to modify theHTTP GET request522. Theproxy engine508 may be configured to generate thepost body514′ using the data objects516 as noted above. Theproxy engine508 may be configured to modify theHTTP GET request522 to include the generatedpost body514′, to thereby re-create the unauthenticatedHTTP POST request512 as an authenticatedHTTP POST request512′ with thepost body514′.

Theintermediary device504 may be configured to send, provide, communicate, or otherwise transmit the authenticatedHTTP POST request512′ (e.g., with thePOST body514′) to theserver506. In some embodiments, theintermediary device504 may be configured to transmit the authenticatedHTTP POST request512′ to theserver506 to cause thepost body514′ to be posted to theserver506. Accordingly, the authenticatedHTTP POST request512′ may be transmitted to the server506 (e.g., to the information resource of the server506) in accordance with (e.g., as specified in) the unauthenticatedHTTP POST request512. In some embodiments, theintermediary device504 may be configured to redirect theclient502 to the information resource, and transmit the authenticatedHTTP POST request512′ to theserver506. Accordingly, thepost body514 of the unauthenticatedHTTP POST request512 is conserved through storing the data objects516 at theclient502 while the user is authenticated, and constructing an authenticatedHTTP POST request512′ using the data objects516 from theHTTP GET request522.

Referring toFIG.6, depicted is a flowchart showing amethod600 of supporting unauthenticated POST requests, according to an illustrative embodiment. The method600 (including various steps included therein) may be implemented by one or more of the components shown inFIG.5 and described above, such as theintermediary device504, the client(s)502, and/or theserver506. As a brief overview, atstep602, a device receives an HTTP POST request. Atstep604, the device determines whether the HTTP POST request is from an authenticated user. If the HTTP POST request is from an authenticated user, themethod600 proceeds to step606 where the device transmits the HTTP POST request to a server. Atstep608, where the HTTP POST request is from an authenticated user, the device generates data objects. Atstep610, the device transmits a request. Atstep612, the device receives an HTTP GET request. Atstep614, the device generates an HTTP POST request. Fromstep614, themethod600 proceeds back tostep608.

Atstep602, a device receives an HTTP POST request. The device may be arranged an intermediary to a client and a server. The device may receive the request from the client for the server. In some embodiments, the HTTP POST request received by the device atstep602 may be an unauthenticated HTTP POST request for the server. In some embodiments, the HTTP POST request may be an authenticated HTTP POST request. The HTTP POST request received atstep602 may include a body (e.g., to be posted at the server). In some embodiments, the HTTP POST request may identify an information resource, such as a website, webpage, a service, or other resource associated with the server. The HTTP POST request may include an address or identifier corresponding to the information resource (e.g., in the header for the HTTP POST request).

Atstep604, the device determines whether the HTTP POST request is from an authenticated user. If the HTTP POST request is from an authenticated user, themethod600 proceeds to step606 where the device transmits the HTTP POST request to a server. In some embodiments, the device may determine whether the HTTP POST request is from an authenticated user (e.g., an authenticated HTTP POST request) based on data from the HTTP POST request received atstep602. The device may parse the HTTP POST request to determine whether the HTTP POST request includes a session identifier or other data included in the header which identifies the HTTP POST request as being an associated with an authenticated user. Where the HTTP POST request is associated with an authenticated user, themethod600 may proceed to step606. However, where the HTTP POST request is associated with an unauthenticated user, themethod600 may proceed to step608.

Atstep608, where the HTTP POST request is from an authenticated user, the device generates data objects. In some embodiments, the data objects may be cookies to be stored at the browser of the client. In some embodiments, the device may generate one or more data objects for the body of the unauthenticated HTTP POST request. In some embodiments, the device may generate a plurality of data objects. For example, the data objects may have a maximum size (e.g., a maximum data object size). The device may generate a plurality of data objects where the post body of the unauthenticated HTTP POST request has a size which exceeds the maximum data object size. The device may generate the plurality of data objects by dividing the body of the unauthenticated HTTP POST request into the plurality of data objects.

In some embodiments, the device may store context data in memory which corresponds to the unauthenticated HTTP POST request. The device may generate and store the context data based on the unauthenticated HTTP POST request. For example, the context data may include a session identifier corresponding to a connection between the client and device, an indicator which indicates an HTTP request type (e.g., that the unauthenticated HTTP POST request is an HTTP POST request), and so forth. The device may store the context data responsive to determining that the HTTP POST is an unauthenticated HTTP POST request.

Atstep610, the device transmits a request. In some embodiments, the device may transmit the request to the client. In some embodiments, the request may be a request to cause an authentication of the user. The request may include the one or more data objects generated atstep608. In some embodiments, the request may include a parameter which indicates that the device is to generate the authenticated HTTP POST request from the HTTP GET request. In some embodiments, the request may be a redirect request (such as anHTTP302 redirect) which redirects the client to an authentication page associated with the device (or a device which is associated with authenticating a user). The device may transmit the request and data objects to the client to cause a user of the client to authenticate themselves.

In some embodiments, such as where the device both serves as a proxy for the client and authenticates users of the clients, the request may redirect the client to an authentication page corresponding to the device. The device may receive one or more credentials for authenticating the user from the client based on data provided by the user to the client. The device may receive the credentials responsive to transmitting the request atstep610. The one or more credentials received from the client may be, for example, a username and password, biometric data, a pin or passcode, etc. The device may authenticate the user based on the credentials received from the client. Once the device authenticates the user, the device may generate a request to redirect the client back to the information resource identified in the unauthenticated HTTP POST request. The device may transmit the request to the client to cause the client to be redirected to the information resource.

Atstep612, the device receives an HTTP GET request. In some embodiments, the device may receive an HTTP GET request responsive to authenticating the user. The HTTP GET request may include the data objects stored on the client. In some embodiments, the client may automatically generate the HTTP GET request responsive to receiving the redirect request from the device. In some embodiments, the HTTP GET request includes the parameter received responsive to authenticating the user. The parameter may correspond to the context data and may be used to generate an authenticated HTTP POST request.

Atstep614, the device generates an HTTP POST request. In some embodiments, the device may generate an authenticated HTTP POST request corresponding to the unauthenticated HTTP POST request (e.g., received at step602) using the one or more data objects included in the HTTP GET request (e.g., received at step612). In some embodiments, the device may generate the authenticated HTTP POST request by modifying an identifier of the HTTP GET request which corresponds to HTTP GET requests to an identifier which corresponds to HTTP POST requests.

Fromstep614, themethod600 proceeds back tostep608. Atstep608, the device may transmit the HTTP POST request. The device may transmit an authenticated HTTP POST request to the server. The authenticated HTTP POST request may be the HTTP POST request received at step602 (which is determined to be an authenticated HTTP POST request at step604) or the HTTP POST request generated at step614 (which was generated from the HTTP GET request received at step612). The device may transmit the HTTP POST request to the information resource specified in the HTTP POST request received atstep602.

Referring now toFIG.7, depicted is a flowchart700 showing thesystem500 ofFIG.5 providing efficient handling of unauthenticated POST requests through one or more intermediary devices, according to an illustrative embodiment. As shown inFIG.7, a client executing abrowser520 may transmit an HTTP POST request with a request body to aproxy engine508. Theproxy engine508 may be implemented on an intermediary device, such as theintermediary device504 shown inFIG.5. Theproxy engine508 may evaluate configuration parameters associated with the HTTP POST request from thebrowser520 to determine whether the HTTP POST request is from an authenticated user. Where theproxy engine508 determines that the HTTP POST request is from an unauthenticated user, theproxy engine508 may accumulate the post body from the HTTP POST request according to the configuration parameters. Theproxy engine508 may generate, build, or otherwise construct a small context corresponding tobrowser520 and/or client which is to be stored on memory along with a reference. Theproxy engine508 may transmit aHTTP302 redirect to thebrowser520 for redirecting thebrowser520 to theauthentication engine510. TheHTTP302 redirect may include the reference and data corresponding to the post body, such as data objects or cookies which together form or correspond to the post body.

When the browser receives theHTTP302 redirect, the browser may provide a login request with the reference to theauthentication engine510. Theauthentication engine510 may use the reference for retrieving the context associated with thebrowser520 and/or client, and may verify the parameters corresponding to thebrowser520 match the parameters received with the HTTP POST request. Theauthentication engine510 may provide a login page to thebrowser520 for rendering. The user may provide the login credentials to theauthentication engine510 via the login page. Theauthentication engine510 may perform login as required, and may retrieve metadata using the reference and copy an indication (or flag, or extra query) for the session. Theauthentication engine510 may transmit anHTTP302 redirect to the original uniform resource locator (URL) corresponding to the HTTP POST request. TheHTTP302 redirect may include the indication or extra query for receipt by the browser.

Thebrowser520 may transmit an HTTP GET request to the proxy engine508 (e.g., with the indication or extra query). The HTTP GET request may also include the data objects which were stored as cookies at thebrowser520. Theproxy engine508 may retrieve the session using the indication or extra query, lookup a flag which corresponds to the session and indicates that theproxy engine508 is to generate an HTTP POST request from the HTTP GET request. Theproxy engine508 may construct, build, generate, or otherwise collage the body from the data objects included in the HTTP GET request. Theproxy engine508 may switch the method of the HTTP request from an HTTP GET request to an HTTP POST request, and unset the session flag. Theproxy engine508 may transmit the HTTP POST request to theserver508 with the body, and theserver506 may transmit a response back to the browser520 (e.g., through theproxy engine508 or directly to the browser520).

In one specific implementation of the flow shown inFIG.7, whenever an unauthenticated POST request arrives at the proxy engine (or a traffic management virtual server), the traffic management virtual server will check for configuration that controls handling of the POST requests. Based on the configuration, the intermediary device that includes or otherwise executes the traffic management virtual server will start accumulating the desired data.

Once the data has been accumulated, the intermediary device can set this data as a cookie. However, most browsers do not handle cookies of more than 4096 bytes. Therefore, the intermediary device can be configured to split the data into multiple cookies and set all of them on the browser.

Along with setting the cookie, the traffic management virtual server can also store the indication that the first request is a POST request in memory. The traffic management virtual server can also store the virtual server unique identifier and several other parameters in the memory in order to prevent storing sensitive information in the browser.

The traffic management virtual server can then get a one-time reference for this information stored in the memory. The traffic management virtual server can send this information along with a corresponding302 request, which also sets cookies.

The authentication virtual server can process a one-time code, validate the reference and all the parameters thereby. The authentication virtual server can then redirect the user to the authentication page and preserve the one time code for future use.

Once authentication is complete, the authentication virtual server can retrieve the information associated with the one time code. The authentication virtual server can identify from the previously stored indication that the initial request was a POST request.

The authentication virtual server can then indicate that the session needs to process first request as a POST request. The authentication virtual server can then redirect the user back to the origin URL at the traffic management virtual server. However, since the original request is a POST request, the authentication virtual server can add an extra query parameter at the end of the URL. This query parameter will serve as an indication to the traffic management virtual server to process the body.

When traffic management virtual server gets the redirect, the traffic management virtual server looks for the session indication, and also the query parameter to confirm the same. A combination of the session indication and the query parameter can be used to avoid both race conditions and also malicious injection of query parameters by attackers. The traffic management virtual server can strip or remove the extra context from the URL, collate the body from the different cookie values, modify the HTTP method to POST and proxy the data to the backend server. The backend server can then see or identify the data in its entirety and is unaware of any processing that happened at the proxy.

While the embodiments described herein show one possible implementation of the present solution, it is noted that other possible implementations may be used for conserving a post body from an HTTP POST request. For instance, when an unauthenticated HTTP POST request arrives at the intermediary device, the intermediary device may allocate a complete session for the client. Such embodiments may avoid setting cookies at the client, but could result in various attacks (such as a DoS attack), since any arbitrary request may allocate a session on the intermediary device. Another approach may include redirecting the client following authentication to a dedicated uniform resource locator (URL) for reconstructing the post body of the HTTP POST request. The dedicated URL may transmit a redirect to the original information resource (such as an 200 OK message) which automatically posts the post body corresponding to the unauthenticated HTTP POST request. However, such embodiments may have an additional round-trip of requests, and is therefore more efficient. According to still another embodiment, upon receiving the HTTP GET request following authentication, the intermediary device may process the HTTP GET request as a special endpoint, and convert the request method (e.g., from an HTTP GET request to an HTTP POST request). However, such an implementation may result in a problem where the server response with relative links to parents (e.g., /path/resource).

Various elements, which are described herein in the context of one or more embodiments, may be provided separately or in any suitable sub-combination. For example, the processes described herein may be implemented in hardware, software, or a combination thereof. Further, the processes described herein are not limited to the specific embodiments described. For example, the processes described herein are not limited to the specific processing order described herein and, rather, process blocks may be re-ordered, combined, removed, or performed in parallel or in serial, as necessary, to achieve the results set forth herein.

It will be further understood that various changes in the details, materials, and arrangements of the parts that have been described and illustrated herein may be made by those skilled in the art without departing from the scope of the following claims.

Claims (20)

I claim:

1. A method comprising:

receiving, by a device intermediary to a client and a server, from the client, an unauthenticated HTTP POST request for the server, the unauthenticated HTTP POST request including a body;

generating, by the device, one more data objects for the body of the unauthenticated HTTP POST request;

transmitting, by the device, to the client, a request to cause an authentication of a user, the request including the one or more data objects to be stored on the client;

receiving, by the device, responsive to authenticating the user, from the client, an HTTP GET request including the one or more data objects stored on the client;

generating, by the device, an authenticated HTTP POST request corresponding to the unauthenticated HTTP POST request, the authenticated HTTP post request including the body identified using the one or more data objects included in the HTTP GET request; and

transmitting, by the device, to the server, the authenticated HTTP POST request.

2. The method ofclaim 1, further comprising determining, by the device, based on the unauthenticated HTTP post request, that the user is unauthenticated, wherein generating the one or more data objects and transmitting the request is performed responsive to determining that the user is unauthenticated.

3. The method ofclaim 1, further comprising storing, by the device, in memory of the device, context data including a session identifier corresponding to the unauthenticated HTTP POST request and an indicator indicating that the unauthenticated HTTP POST request is an HTTP POST request.

4. The method ofclaim 3, wherein the HTTP GET request includes a parameter received responsive to authenticating the user, the parameter corresponding to the context data and used to generate the authenticated HTTP POST request.

5. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the request to cause the authentication of the user is a first request, the method further comprising:

receiving, by the device from the client, responsive to the request to cause the authentication of the user, one or more credentials for authenticating the user; and

authenticating, by the device, the user based on the one or more credentials.

6. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the unauthenticated HTTP POST request identifies an information resource, the method further comprising:

generating, by the device, responsive to authenticating the user, a request to redirect the client to the information resource identified in the unauthenticated HTTP POST request; and

transmitting, by the device, to the client, the request to cause the client to be redirected to the information resource.

7. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the request to cause the authentication of the user includes a parameter which indicates that the device is to generate the authenticated HTTP POST request from the HTTP GET request.

8. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the one or more data objects is a plurality of data objects, wherein the body of the unauthenticated HTTP POST request has a size which exceeds a maximum size of a data object of the plurality of data objects, and wherein generating the plurality of data objects comprises:

dividing, by the device, the body of the unauthenticated HTTP POST request into the plurality of data objects.

9. The method ofclaim 8, wherein the plurality of data objects is a plurality of cookies, the method further comprising:

setting, by the device, the plurality of cookies on a browser of the client.

10. The method ofclaim 1, wherein generating the authenticated HTTP POST request comprises modifying, by the device, an identifier of the HTTP GET request which corresponds to HTTP GET requests to an identifier which corresponds to HTTP POST requests.

11. A system comprising:

a device intermediary to a client and a server, the device comprising one or more processors and memory, the device configured to:

receive, from the client, an unauthenticated HTTP POST request for the server, the unauthenticated HTTP POST request including a body;

generate one more data objects for the body of the unauthenticated HTTP POST request;

transmit, to the client, a request to cause an authentication of a user, the request including the one or more data objects to be stored on the client;

receive, responsive to authenticating the user, from the client, an HTTP GET request including the one or more data objects stored on the client;

generate an authenticated HTTP POST request corresponding to the unauthenticated HTTP POST request, the authenticated HTTP post request including the body identified using the one or more data objects included in the HTTP GET request; and

transmit, to the server, the authenticated HTTP POST request.

12. The system ofclaim 11, wherein the device is further configured to determine, based on the unauthenticated HTTP post request, that the user is unauthenticated, wherein generating the one or more data objects and transmitting the request is performed responsive to determining that the user is unauthenticated.

13. The system ofclaim 11, wherein the device is further configured to store, in memory of the device, context data including a session identifier corresponding to the unauthenticated HTTP POST request and an indicator indicating that the unauthenticated HTTP POST request is an HTTP POST request.

14. The system ofclaim 13, wherein the HTTP GET request includes a parameter received responsive to authenticating the user, the parameter corresponding to the context data and used to generate the authenticated HTTP POST request.

15. The system ofclaim 11, wherein the request to cause the authentication of the user is a first request, and wherein the device is further configured to:

receive, from the client, responsive to the request to cause the authentication of the user, one or more credentials for authenticating the user; and

authenticate the user based on the one or more credentials.

16. The system ofclaim 11, wherein the unauthenticated HTTP POST request identifies an information resource, and wherein the device is further configured to:

generate, responsive to authenticating the user, a request to redirect the client to the information resource identified in the unauthenticated HTTP POST request; and

transmit, to the client, the request to cause the client to be redirected to the information resource.

17. The system ofclaim 11, wherein the request to cause the authentication of the user includes a parameter which indicates that the device is to generate the authenticated HTTP POST request from the HTTP GET request.

18. The system ofclaim 11, wherein the one or more data objects is a plurality of data objects, wherein the body of the unauthenticated HTTP POST request has a size which exceeds a maximum size of a data object of the plurality of data objects, and wherein generating the plurality of data objects comprises:

dividing the body of the unauthenticated HTTP POST request into the plurality of data objects.

19. The system ofclaim 18, wherein the plurality of data objects is a plurality of cookies, and wherein the device is further configured to:

set the plurality of cookies on a browser of the client.

20. A non-transitory computer readable medium storing program instructions for causing one or more processors to:

receive, from a client, an unauthenticated HTTP POST request for a server, the unauthenticated HTTP POST request including a body;

generate one more data objects for the body of the unauthenticated HTTP post request;

transmit, to the client, a request to cause an authentication of a user, the request including the one or more data objects to be stored on the client;

receive, responsive to authenticating the user, from the client, an HTTP GET request including the one or more data objects stored on the client;

generate an authenticated HTTP POST request corresponding to the unauthenticated HTTP post request, the authenticated HTTP post request including the body identified using the one or more data objects included in the HTTP GET request; and

transmit, to the server, the authenticated HTTP POST request.

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